Olympia

OLYMPIA

In the making of this series, I was preoccupied with the figure of the odalisque and have drawn it at repetition, exposing different relationships between the inner and outer body.  In response to the white model, Victorine Meurent, in Manet’s famous painting, “Olympia”, these drawings expand the field of vision outside of the heterosexual norm. Through a personal identification with Victorine Meurent,  I’ve illustrated a subjective body, a body connected to the messy, unpredictable aspects of its being: its fluids and substances, its passions and desires. These drawn bodies are bodies that are susceptible to pain, disease, healing and giving birth.  These drawn bodies are also a reflection of my experience of moving through the world as a queer woman in the twenty-first century.